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Meet Andree McLeod, Sarah Palin's Worst Nightmare

If Sarah Palin thought that stepping down as governor of Alaska would be enough to dislodge the thorn in her side that is Andree McLeod—the self-described community activist and one-time Palin ally who is responsible for six of the 20 or so ethics complaints filed against Palin and her administration—she found out last week that she was way off the mark. McLeod filed the fifth of her ethics complaints last Monday, claiming the governor abused her office by accepting a salary and using state staff while campaigning with John McCain last year. Earlier today, she filed her sixth, claiming that Palin has failed to properly disclose gifts she has received while in office. (Greta Van Susteren and legal services provided by her husband, John Coale, figure into this one.) And McLeod has no plans to stop at six. "There's going to be more," she told VF Daily, including one against staff members of current lieutenant governor Sean Parnell, who is set to become governor when Palin steps down.

In her infamous resignation announcement, Palin herself claimed the ethics complaints were taking a toll on her and hurting her ability to govern. One hesitates to assert that McLeod has had a major role in bringing down the governor of Alaska, since all the complaints she has filed—and all but one of the complaints filed by others against Palin—have been dismissed by the board that reviews them. But by her own admission, Palin has had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the complaints, and they have been an unwelcome distraction for her administration.Not surprisingly, Alaskans have mixed feelings about McLeod's efforts. Palin supporters condemn her harshly, saying she is waging a personal vendetta after being denied a job in Palin's administration. (McLeod confirms that she did apply for a job in the administration but says the matter is irrelevant.) Pro-Palin conservative blogs are merciless in ridiculing her. One, citing the fact that she was born in Lebanon, concluded she must have ties to Hezbollah. She is vilified on Alaskan talk radio, and she has been criticized on Fox News. McLeod says she generally disconnects her phone at night, because things can get ugly when she doesn't. For instance, she claims she recently got a phone call at 3:30 a.m. from a man who said he knew her address and warned her to "leave Sarah Palin alone." But threats won't stop her, she says. "You can't let fear stop you from doing the right thing,"

Many Alaskans, however, approve of what she's doing. McLeod is largely responsible for bringing to light Palin's use of a personal Yahoo email account to conduct state business. McLeod is now suing the administration over that matter, as well as over the extent of Todd Palin's involvement in governing decisions. Donald Mitchell, the lawyer and political activist who is representing McLeod in these cases, says McLeod has been instrumental in exposing Palin's dark side. When hundreds of reporters descended on Alaska after McCain selected her as a running mate, Mitchell says, many of them turned to McLeod for guidance on Palin's conduct.

A curious path has led McLeod to her current role as arguably the most famous government watchdog in Alaska. She moved to the state 30 years ago and has since worked a variety of jobs in and out of government, first working for the state of Alaska in 1984. In 1994, she had the idea of operating a falafel cart on the streets of Anchorage as a way to earn money while in grad school. She was denied a permit—the city ruled that falafel, unlike hot dogs and other common street food, was "potentially hazardous"—and fought the decision. She went on to run for mayor and then ran for state legislature twice, coming close to winning on the second try.

McLeod is a Republican, and she was once a Palin ally. In fact, she was integral to Palin's effort to oust state Republican party chairman Randy Ruedrich from Alaska's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003 after it emerged that he had used his state email account for political purposes. So important was McLeod that one Anchorage talk show host, Rick Rydell, has said that "Andree's almost responsible for creating Sarah Palin." Recognizing her debt, Palin heaped praise on McLeod. "Thanks for working to instill the public trust," she wrote her in one email. In other emails she wrote, "I'm proud to know you," and "Holy Moly you are powerful regarding getting the word out to the press about questionable activity."

Indeed, Palin would find out just how powerful, or at least tenacious, when she came into McLeod's line of fire. By touting herself as a reformer and opponent of corruption, Palin had set a high standard for herself, to which McLeod has relentlessly held her. McLeod filed her first complaint against Palin, regarding the hiring of an Alaska Department of Transportation official, in August 2008, before her selection as McCain's running mate. (McLeod points out that she had filed complaints against other officials prior to this.) But Palin was the subject of anonymous complaints as early as 2004, when she was mayor of Wasilla, for email practices similar to Ruedrich's. McLeod says she was not aware of Palin's controversial conduct at that time. "Had I been aware of that, I wouldn't have given her the time of day!" she says, her voice rising. At least one report traces McLeod's "rift" with Palin to 2006, when Palin became governor (and McLeod was denied a job with the administration). McLeod says there's no rift—she's just doing her duty as a citizen to hold Palin to the standards the soon-to-be-ex-governor herself laid out in her gubernatorial inauguration speech.

To McLeod, the fact that all the complaints have been dismissed is merely proof that the review board is in Palin's pocket. "They're appointed by the governor," she says. "They're not independent. I used to work for a board for the state. Boards like this that are made up of volunteers are easily manipulated." The Alaskan attorney general's office retorts that the board is completely independent and that McLeod's complaints have been dismissed by a group of independent outside lawyers who vet all complaints. Asked by VF Daily about the review process, special assistant to the attorney general Bill McAllister, who recently served as Palin's communications director, emphasized again and again that "the bottom line is that the governor and her staff have not been found to be in violation of any law, state or federal." In fact, he said it enough times that I started to wonder if he was trying to convince himself.

It's difficult to pry information from McLeod about her personal life and background. For understandable reasons, she is hesitant to provide any potential ammunition to her critics, and she can be evasive in answering questions. Maybe I just haven't met enough Alaskans, but she definitely sounds a bit eccentric on the phone. Her persistence is remarkable, though, and she does her research. "She's kind of a mystery woman," one Alaskan journalist says of McLeod, whom Palin and others have derisively referred to as the "falafel woman." One Alaskan Democrat who knows McLeod says she's "opportunistic" and "always angling for power," but adds that the work she's doing is important and legitimate.

The way McLeod sees it, there's not much point in discussing her past. "I'm so focused on the present, and making sure things are done right," she says. "There's so much misinformation coming out from Sarah's mouth and from her lawyer's mouths… I have to make sure right now that I do what needs to be done to make sure that the record is correct when it comes to her conduct."